Endgame and Parting Words
by LettersFromThePariah
Summary: An ace, a falling out, and a series of seemingly unrelated cases. Something is determined to keep the law in shambles, beginning with the disbarment of Apollo Justice and Phoenix Wright and ending with one Athena Cykes.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This is, as stated in the summary, a kink meme fill. The prompt was Phoenix and Apollo being disbarred because of the forged evidence from 4-1, and I went from there. It's obviously FAR from complete, I'm just posting what I have.**

**Geez, I dunno if I should even upload this yet. But enjoy for now, I guess.**

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5:34 PM. God knows how long she's walked.

The date would be branded eternally into Athena Cykes's mind: The seventeenth of February, the day Trucy Wright had been tried for murder. More importantly, the day Athena failed to win that trial. The day that her former boss's daughter was sentenced for something she was innocent of.

Former boss's...It had only been, what, a few weeks since the information had slipped? All of it had just...happened. No warning came, nothing signaled the coming storm. It had just happened while she looked away, and just like that they were gone. They were gone, and Athena was the last one left.

They had left quietly. Apollo? Who knew where he had gone. He had simply vanished, leaving no trace behind. And Phoenix, while he and Athena had exchanged parting words, there was something...off about him, as if he hadn't been there. As if he was no longer Phoenix Wright, but simply a different entity altogether. His voice had sounded so hollow, and even now they would constantly echo in Athena's mind, blurring together to form a constant droning of empty words.

Athena finally brings herself to sit down on a park bench, her back to the setting sun.

This wasn't her fault.

But Trucy could have been saved. This wasn't a missed opportunity, either, Athena KNEW this was coming, she KNEW that this path could have been avoided. She could have prevented another wrongful death, and yet she lost, she lost the trial so spectacularly.

Trucy was on death row. It was Athena's fault. She could have been saved. Everything was wrong, all because of one card, one small piece of evidence.

...Forged evidence. Something that happened long ago, back when she wasn't there to stop this.

Athena of all people knew what it was like to see one's facade break. To see the moment when a person physically cracks, cracks in such a way that one could practically hear it if they took a closer listen. Even when her own smile finally broke, every time it happened, the crack was there, and there were always two solutions to this: Tear it down or patch it up. Nobody was quite sure what to do. Show what's behind that mask, yet put so many emotions on the line? Or quietly regress to what one used to be?

She didn't get to see this moment in anybody during the incident.

Yet, had she been there to see him, she would have seen the look in Apollo's eyes: Tired. Desperate to rebuild. Cold, even.

She had missed the chance to see this. Had she been there, who knows? Maybe Apollo's whereabouts would at least be known.

Questions buzzed through Athena's mind, desperate as she was to clear it, yet there was a point where she finally asked herself one important question.

_Could Trucy be saved?_

Wouldn't that take a miracle.

A real miracle.

Unlike that damned ace.


	2. Chapter 2

February seventeenth, 11:30 PM.

She doesn't know it's that late yet. She's still frozen, shuddering violently, still broken from what the day had brought her.

Trucy Wright hadn't killed anybody. She hadn't done anything, even with a plausible motive, even with all the right evidence presented at the right times, she was innocent.

Even when all had been left in shambles and a person claiming to carry answers as to what had happened showed his face to her, she did nothing. Yet somebody had found a way to convince the world it was her. That she had brutally murdered a man whom she didn't even know, that she had plunged a knife through his stomach and let him bleed out. That she was lying about not remembering what had happened.

She couldn't remember a thing. Did she follow this man, even? No, she believes she tried to run, but why? Had something seemed just that..._off_ at that time? She couldn't leave quietly, she had to run. It was faint, the memory, and all she remembers is running and, before that, the man's offer.

_I know who did this._

Nothing was right at this point, and the only thing that remained in Trucy's mind was the echo of one word.

"Guilty!"

She's going to die for something she doesn't know she even did.

She is still terrified. Nothing can help her at this point; her mouth remains dry, her body restless, her breaths shallow. Every once in a while, she'll let out a cough. Nothing more.

She cannot get to sleep. She must sleep, but she cannot.

Those who had seen how she was before this would agree on one thing: This was no longer Trucy Wright. This was a rapidly breaking shell who had to stare death straight in the face.

She'll return to her usual smile soon enough, though. It's a particular skill of hers.

Until then, she lets her own violent breaths drag her into a deep slumber, one that she hopes will last for ages.

One that will force her to forget what the ace had done.


	3. Chapter 3

-March 3, 10:20 AM-  
-Detention center-  
-Visitor's room-

"Please, ma'am. I am but a simple author, nothing more, and I lay here behind bars, nay, glass, staring down such a young, fierce attorney, her eyes like beautiful deep pools of-"

_"Cut the awful prose already!"_

"! W-Widget!"

Athena stands once again at the detention center, speaking with yet another client. It would surprise anybody, seeing her doing any work at all so soon after the incident. Yet here she stood, taking another case. Perhaps this was due to things that had happened in the past. Perhaps she still believed in finding the truth about what had happened with Trucy.

Regardless, Athena Cykes is still working.

The man she is speaking with can't be older than twenty-five. He is dressed simply, yet his dark, tattered clothes show his position as a poor, starving artist more than anything else about him. His hair is long and almost disgustingly greasy, but he looks at Athena with desperate eyes, speaking with urgency in his voice that shines above his on-the-fly prose.

He has, obviously, been accused of murder.

"Ah, y-yes...Ma'am," the man sighs, "I assume my cousin led you here?"

"Yes," Athena answered, "Is she normally-"

"Absolutely, absolutely," he interrupts, "Ivy Penn, my cousin, she puts on quite the show when she's nervous. At any rate, you are aware of who I am, yes?"

"Er, no," Athena admits, "Ivy said literally nothing about you. She wouldn't even let me speak with her before I came here, she just sobbed to me about her cousin needing help."

Athena didn't mention how hollow the young girl's voice had sounded. In fact, Ivy had barely shown herself to Athena, she had only cried to her under a hood before begging her to visit this mysterious cousin...And promptly left, reappearing near the detention center for the same brief amount of time.

"She is such a beautiful girl, is she not? Well, if you didn't see her, given how she slips away, I could describe her in vivid detail-"

"That won't be necessary!" Athena quickly interrupts, "Please, just tell me who you are."

The man nods, fidgeting with a small feather in the pocket of the coat he is wearing.

"Yes," he says, "My name is Ian K. Penn. Cousin of Ivy Penn. Would you listen to my plight, by chance?"

Athena nods. Nothing sounds out of the ordinary in Ian's voice just yet.

"There is a library I favor. The Fatima Fontaine Penn Memorial library, named for my great-great-grandmother, whose works inspired many. At any rate...It was incredibly late, say, midnight when it happened."

This statement is a little odd, but still nothing audible in his voice.

"Just what were you doing there?" Athena asks, "At midnight, of all times?"

"I was taking a walk, trying to find inspiration for a novel. It was then, when I passed the library, that I heard the killer strike, yet they had fled before I could see them."

There's something in his voice now. Hints of...anger.

"The victim died just after I arrived, and I've been blamed..."

There it was. Athena flinches at the sudden shift in emotions that comes with his last sentence. His voice is filled with discord, no matter how normal it could have sounded to somebody else.

"Er, ma'am," Ian asks, "Are you quite alright, ma'am?"

Athena nods.

"...So, miss, you will take my case? Step up to defend me in a court of law, like any dramatic heroine would?"

Ian's eyes seem to sparkle at this. Athena already dreads the outcome of this case. The prospect of becoming a character in some terribly-written novel...

But more importantly, the discordant tones in his voice have been heard. She is reluctant to even consider backing down. With this in mind...

"Yes," she agrees, "I'll be defending you."

"R-Really?!" Ian gasps, almost like a small child, "Oh, thank you, ma'am! Thank you! I could sing eternal praises about you, your courage, your...E-everything! Please, do not hesitate to ask about anything!"

"A-All right," Athena replies awkwardly, "...Did you know the victim at all?"

Ian goes silent for a long while. After the period of silence, however, he shakes his head.

"She wasn't anybody I knew, ma'am. Simply an unlucky girl who happened to be out there at that time."

This was a lie. An obvious lie, at that.

Yet with nothing to prove otherwise, Athena quickly realized this was something she'd have to find out during the investigation.

There were no further questions at this point.

"Well, Mr. Penn, that was all I had to ask," Athena says, "If you have anything else that-"

"-could be useful, let you know," Ian interrupts, "Ah, to think I'm being defended by you. So young! Fierce! Truly an inspiration to all! The qualities of a true hero! I'd love to speak with you further, but alas, you must defend me! Until then, farewell!"

Athena groans, turning to walk away...

_"This guy's a total nightmare!"_

...And curses Widget once more as she leaves.


	4. Chapter 4

It's not that far from the scene of the crime when Athena sees Phoenix again.

The area is quite heavily affected by the grim chill that winter brings, seeming unusually gray, even if it _is_ a near-abandoned city block. It just seems so _off_, as if it's been this way for years, as if the nearby murder was a mere memory of a time gone by.

Though it may have been the presence of the man himself that gave the area such a depressing aura, particularly to Athena.

She simply passes him by, barely noticing at first. Or rather, trying to keep herself from noticing.

It's not hard to see that this man is Phoenix Wright in name alone. He is barely even a shadow of what he used to be. If Athena could have seen him a few years ago, he would have looked better then than he did now. This wasn't just him reverting to what he was back then, no, this was something much different from that.

A single look from across a road showed more about him than anything else would.

His eyes, when one could see them, were dark; light no longer seemed to breach them. It was as if years of insomnia had plagued him, the effects condensed into a few days at least. His face had darkened considerably and gained a constant look of deep, desperate thought. If Athena were closer, she'd be overcome by a potpourri of whatever stenches Phoenix had managed to gather in the long weeks since he was disbarred. He is unkempt, scraggly. All of this, and yet he still stands.

Even as Athena simply passes by him, she is overcome with his negative emotions, at least relatively speaking.

Fear. Defiance. Sorrow. Yet in spite of all this, she's certain that he carries no traces of resignation.

Phoenix glances towards Athena, who is already headed towards the nearby scene of the crime at a much faster pace than she had been at first.

Sighing, Phoenix turns back to the path ahead of him.

He definitely has his own reasons for walking down this road, so close to the site of a grisly murder.

His own reasons that aren't to be revealed to her. Not yet, anyway.


End file.
